The cryptocurrency market is a huge and vast global entity, with a total market cap value that’s now in excess of $2.59 trillion.
Not only this, but the marketplace is home to nearly 12,000 separate tokens, many of which are described as altcoins and spread across second and third-generation blockchain assets.
But what are altcoins, and could one or more of this asset class ever evolve to topple Bitcoin as the cryptocurrency market leader?
In the Weird and Wonderful World of Altcoins
Beneath Bitcoin and Ethereum, which combine to account for more than $1.5 trillion of the total crypto market cap, there’s a plethora of so-called “altcoins” that form the next dimension of the cryptocurrency realm.
Altcoins are best described as penny stock cryptocurrencies, which boast relatively low values but retain the potential for both short and long-term growth over time.
You can access such assets seamlessly through online trading platforms, particularly with brokers such as Tickmill offering a $30 welcome bonus to new forex account holders.
Let’s take Dogecoin as the leading altcoin, which recently saw its own value shoot up by nearly 40 cents from $0.2702 on April 24th to $0.6848 on May 7th.
Of course, Dogecoin has since returned to a price of around $0.40, highlighting the innate volatility of altcoins and the ability to both make and lose fortunes within an incredibly short period of time.
What’s more, altcoins are vulnerable to the machinations of scammers, with the infamous DeTrade scheme (which was based on false technology) fronted by a fictitious CEO whose videos were deepfakes created by AI.
The crypto scam tools more than $2 million of investor’s money before disappearing, with this one of many such instances to have taken place as altcoins have become increasingly popular and commonplace.
Could Altcoins Eventually Surpass Bitcoin?
With the latter point and the volatile nature of altcoins in mind, you could be forgiven for thinking that this asset class doesn’t really have a future in the marketplace.
However, this ignores the diverse range of altcoins on the market, in addition to the huge growth potential that defines this type of asset. Make no mistake; the most successful crypto traders delegate between 10% and 15% of their liquid portfolios to altcoins, in order to optimise profits both in the near and longer-term.
The question that remains, however, is can one or more altcoins ever grow to supersede Bitcoin? This is much harder to answer in practicality, with the response likely to vary from one token to another.
For example, AGI crypto (which is underpinned by artificial intelligence) is a fast-growing and highly lucrative sector in the marketplace, and one that continues to spawn some incredibly promising tokens.
Take SingularityNet, for example, which is defined as the world’s first decentralised AI network and currently boasts a circulating supply of 950 million coins (valued at around 5 cents).
With the wider AI software market expected to grow approximately 54% year-on-year, this type of altcoin is best placed to thrive and challenge Bitcoin in the future.
